FELLOWSHIP FUND UPDATE
In December of 2023, we started an official partnership with Edenton Street UMC and First Presbyterian Church, providing financial assistance for our neighbors in need. Through this partnership, individuals submit an application through our website and it goes to all three churches. Ministers from each of the three congregations sit down each week and go over the applications, and each congregation agrees to help a certain number of people. We split up the names and each church uses its individual budget to help whomever they can that particular week. The three churches work from a combined database, and we only help an individual family once a year. Our church has made the commitment to pay full bills for families to lessen the inevitable burden of the family having to go around to multiple sources collecting the remaining amount.
Since January 2024, our church has been able to provide rental and utility assistance for 37 families amounting to $64,435! Because of faithful giving to the Fellowship Fund, you have made this possible. The vast majority of these families were facing evictions, and your gifts have kept them in their homes, and off the streets. During these past six months, we have seen a dramatic increase in applications, resulting in more need and less funding. To conserve what funding we have left, we have chosen to take a summer break on contributing to the weekly effort of helping families. First Presbyterian and Edenton Street UMC have continued, and we hope to resume in early August depending on our funding.
The overwhelming need in our city can sometimes feel insurmountable. There are many days where this work feels, as Mother Teresa says, “like a drop in the ocean.” But I’m reminded over and over again through talking with individual families, about the desperate need for this work. To these 37 families, your gifts have changed their world.
We collect donations for the Mike Morris Fellowship Fund on the first Sunday of each month, however you may give to this offering any time! We are deeply grateful for the faithful monthly gifts that have allowed us the privilege of walking with these families during some of their darkest days. For questions about the Fellowship Fund, please email Leah.
